


Are You My Friend?

by Irbsandcheese



Category: TAZ: Balance - Fandom, The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Canon Compliant, F/M, John Lives, JohnChurch - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 17:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18833671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irbsandcheese/pseuds/Irbsandcheese
Summary: Bonds are easily made in life. They are much harder to break. On the beach, in John's last moments, a few words can change the outcome of a centuries-long game of cat and mouse.





	Are You My Friend?

The sun is almost set. The perpetual dusk that surrounded Merle and John for every moment in parley, every second of connection, friendship, betrayal, and bargains was finally coming to an end. 

Merle hadn't seen a beach since he remembered his lost century. The place is both entirely average and inexplicably remarkable in the moment he sees John sitting on the sand. It's a beach like any other, not as magnificent as the one they had spent a year in so long ago, but the place looms with a sense of finality. 

Once John leaves, this place will also leave forever.

He coughs, voice hoarse and weak. "Merle... will you sit with me? Just... just for a moment?"

"...You got it, buddy," is the easy and free response that Merle provides, and it almost makes John chuckle. He's never been called anyone's 'buddy' before.

Merle takes a seat on John's jacket, barely enough space to fit the two of them. The horizon begins to grow darker and darker, steadily marching towards it's end in much the same way the Hunger had been doing all along. 

He turns towards the dwarf beside him. "We don’t have to talk. Let’s just...let’s just watch this together." He looks back towards the sunset, but Merle continues to stare at him. The man who chased them for a century. The man who moved a whole world with his words. The man who realized his mistake, far too late. The man who tried to turn the tide. Something about this seems... wrong to Merle. The man who killed him over sixty times doesn't get to tell Merle Hightower Highchurch how he's going to spend his last moments with his seventh oldest friend. 

"We've spent all of our time together talking... talking about plans and strategy and how best to outsmart the other," Merle's arms go wide, as if unable to express the depth of his emotion with only words, "and I'm not going to spend this moment in silence when I have some things I need to say to you." 

John turns in surprise, an emotion he hadn't ever expected to feel again. His face quickly resettles into his finely schooled expression of disinterest. "I suppose it's only fair that you are able to express your pain and anguish to the one who vexed you for so long. Go ahead, Merle. You deserve it." He bows his head, awaiting the barrage of accusations from his one and only friend in... well, as long as he could remember. A strange feeling aches in his chest, a sadness that only seems to make itself known in Merle's presence. 

Moments pass in silence, the light on the horizon nearly gone now. A light that he could always see, but was so often out of reach, is now disappearing for good. 

Merle's hand touches his shoulder gentle and warm. It had been so long since John had felt a touch so sincere. The hand squeezes his shoulder desperately, causing the dying man to look into the eyes of the last face he'd ever see. Merle's face is open and honest, probably one of the most sincere things John had ever seen as he says, "You have done so many things in this life of yours, more than the average soul. I just wanted to tell you... Thank you."

Night falls on the beach and John smiles slightly, a hint of a tear in his eye. He doesn't have the chance to respond as his form dissolves into millions of tiny strands, almost like the bright bonds that won the fight, but instead they are dark in color, absorbing the light around them. As they unwind, as if repelled by each other, they too disintegrate once they get a few feet from where John's form once sat. 

Merle takes a second to look out over the darkened waters and he doesn't see his own form disappear into strands of his own, shining bonds that briefly illuminate the dim shore. Merle also fails to see a single strand where the jacket once lay, alone on the beach, half a century long and glowing faintly.

As Merle returns to his friends, his family, for the final stand, the beach remains. The only light on the shore is that of a small, seemingly insignificant strand. Its glow is inconsequential when compared to any other source of light, but in the utter darkness, it remains as a beacon of hope. Time moves slowly, and the strand occasionally dims, flickering, but it always brightens again, renewed by some unknown determination. Eventually, the beach grows smaller, nearly unable to support its own existence. The horizons in all directions begin to shift, succumbing to the dark abyss that resides outside of wherever this place is. Soon enough, the only things that exist in this realm are the small patch of sand surrounding the strand, and the ever unreachable horizon. The edges of the plane are frayed, like a tapestry in shreds, and the forces keeping the abyss at bay are beginning to weaken.

As the Tres Horny Bois give the final confrontation their all, Lucretia succeeds in the spell, setting loose a force more powerful than anything that had been done since the creation of time. Every living thing felt it in some way, though not as clearly as the story and song. This was a moment of finality, of success and a sign of hope. The Hunger was contained, but so were the four brave travelers who contained it. The Light of Creation creates a spot of frozen time, an unbreakable barrier around the remnants of the Hunger, and a single halted moment of Merle, Magnus, Taako, and Lucretia, stuck at a standstill.

In this stalemate, the one who was known for bending the rules a little saw an opportunity.

Interfering in the worlds he helped to create is not allowed, but this was certainly a special circumstance. In fact, it seems like it is two special circumstances. How peculiar. 

He goes to the remnants of the beach first. His presence alone causes the scenery around him to reform and flourish. His will alone causes dawn to peek over the horizon.

The voice has no source, but it speaks with confidence and curiosity. "You seem to have found yourself in an incredibly unique situation." The strand's glow is almost impossible to see in the light of day, but it still shimmers faintly. "You have caused an awful load of trouble, tainting your bonds and slowly erasing yourself from existence." His voice is tinged with sadness at the thought of such isolation. The string lifts into the air, shifting slightly in the breeze. "And yet here you are, a single connection that you did not taint. A... friend of sorts." Moments pass, the fabricated environment they are in seemingly composed of uncertainty. "This is not technically allowed, so do not tell anyone about this." The beach finally dissolves into nothingness as the presence leaves, taking the solitary bond with him.

 

The second special circumstance was that of four birds. With those consumed by the Hunger trying to find their way back to their own planes, it would take some outside help to get everything back to the way it was meant to be, but not much.

Every world that was consumed by the hunger was trapped in the same place, frozen and fighting a losing battle. Once the worlds were set free, they exploded throughout the multiverse. Currently, they are jumbled up, clashed and merged with each other in a chaotic whirlwind of life and joy. Despite being lost and disrupted, those that inhabit the worlds know what they have been through. They remember the force of darkness that they unwillingly took part in. And they remember the story of seven birds, and the song of a dying poet. And because of this, all of them, against all odds, all of them chose to celebrate; they chose joy.

And now, with the planes and universes mingling together incoherently, they do as most things do after being torn apart. Already, the planes are coalescing and finding their respective planar systems. Sure, there will be some micromanaging to get everything back to normal, but the laws of existence that they had already made would do a lot of the work for them. The planar systems want to be together, they want to thrive together.

The real problem was the four heroic idiots who had touched and influenced almost a hundred planes. Those who still remained in Faerun were firmly anchored to that world. The four who were on board the Starblaster had no such anchor. Every plane they had ever visited wanted them. Every plane knew their story and had some small claim to their existence, and given enough time, it would surely pull them apart. An intervention was necessary, so the four lost birds were taken to... nowhere. A place for things that don't exist. He leaves to greet them and explain the situation taking the single bond with him.

Unsurprisingly, when he arrives, all of the heroes are unconscious from the stress of what they've been through. Saving thousands of planes is quite exhausting.

Much more surprisingly, they are on the plush carpeted flooring of a... train? No one in his group had checked in on this space recently, so it seems some debris had found its way here somehow. A small movement in the corner of the compartment catches his eye. A small mechanical insect of some sort darts around the floor aimlessly.

"Huh." The small scuttlebuddy is lifted off of the ground and suspended in the air. Next to it, the loose bond also floats, glowing brighter than before. "John, I want to give you a chance. You are honestly astounding, and I'm going to help you find yourself again. If you say a word to any of my collaborators, it's all over for both of us. Although, you won't exactly be able to speak in this form. But hopefully we'll get to that." As the voice speaks, John's bond gets closer to the mechanical insect and by the time quiet returns to the train car, the bond is wrapped in and around scuttlebuddy. 

The remnant of John finally had a body again.


End file.
